One Sacrament, Two Parts

Regarding the connexion of baptism to confirmation, I think you hit the proverbial nail on the head: strictly speaking, baptism and confirmation are two integral parts of one sacramental mystery, and thus our challenge is somehow to bring them back together in a closer unity. The rite of 'Christian initiation' (for lack of a better phrase) as described by all of the early fathers, and especially S. Ambrose and S. Augustine, is presented as one rite consisting of a prebaptismal anointing with exorcism, a triple immersion, a postbaptismal anointing, and a final consignation and anointing with chrism, which corresponds to our modern chrismation. Indeed, the crux of the question is the development in the Western Church in which the baptismal and chrismal mysteries were ultimately separated. You raise a vital point about the priest's postbaptismal anointing of the baptizand with chrism in the rite of baptism itself -- in the ancient liturgies, such an anointing would correspond, not to the final sacramental chrismation (with its prayer for the sevenfold gift of the Spirit as read in Isaiah 11), but to a postbaptismal anointing then used to symbolise the descent of the Holy Ghost in baptism. Again, it would be arbitrary, however, to separate any these anointings and rites because they originally formed an organic whole. In ECUSA, during the trial Prayer Book period in the 1970's, a draft rite of baptism actually included within it the rite of confirmation for newly baptised children, replete with an appropriate prayer for the actual conferral of the gifts of the Spirit with anointing with chrism. The historic rite of separate 'western' confirmation for older children was also retained. This, naturally, led to complete confusion amongst both the clergy and laity, as they could not figure out which rite actually conveyed the sacrament of confirmation, and the innovation was struck out of the 1979 book. I do know of a case in which an ECUSA priest confirmed children at their baptisms using the new-fangled (but actually more ancient) rite, and thebishop of the diocese insisted that they subsequently NOT be 'reconfirmed' in adolescence, because they had, according to his judgment, already received the indelible character of confirmation. Perhaps we should go the Eastern route and fully initiate children as infants, only to have them attend a confirmation class and make an affirmation of faith at a later stage of life. Not a bad idea - it seems to have worked for the Eastern Churches for, well, millennia!